But now, with their team one match away from France's first final in 68 years of trying, the host nation has shaken off its soccer torpor and taken the team to heart.

``Les Bleus at the threshold of legend,'' said the usually unexcitable Le Figaro newspaper in a front-page headline today ahead of the squad's semi-final clash against Croatia later in the day.

Support for the soccer team, known as the Blues, has grown steadily as France has made its uncertain way through the competition, culminating in a massive street party along the elegant Champs Elysee last Friday when the French knocked out Italy in the quarter-finals.

In a country which is traditionally reticent about soccer, reserving its sporting fervour for the annual Tour de France cycling race, the new found passion for the World Cup has surprised even the Frenchplayers.

``We really have amazing public support. You see fans with the tricolour painted on their faces, celebrating in the streets. It is something we have never seen in France,'' said French captain Didier Deschamps.

Reflecting the public mood, France's newspapers have devoted more and more copy to the team, while politicians have been scrambling over themselves to outdo each other with their soccer similes.

France's conservative president Jacques Chirac told the nation he would like to be a goalkeeper, while socialist prime minister Lionel Jospin said he used to play as goalkeeper but now saw himself as both a coach and a playmaker.

``I am a team leader. I am a player manager, let us say a combination of (French coach Aime) Jacquet and (midfielder Zinedine) Zidane,'' the Premier said in a radio interview.

The fact that France has no star strikers and has scored just one goal in its last four hours of open football, has done nothing to dampen media interest.

Liberation daily, which normallyreserves a few paragraphs to sport, gave over its first five pages to today's semi-final and Le Parisien reserved its first nine pages for the match, with four more thrown in later for good measure.

``Everyone wants the World Cup,'' was France's motto in 1991 when it launched its bid to host the Cup, but when it finally got to host the competition the reality proved quite different.

One poll prior to the start of the football fest said that 70 percent of French women were indifferent to the tournament. No women are flocking to the stadiums, big screens and street parties to watch the games - won over by the emotion.

``There were moments when I had tears in my eyes...I understand what the fans feel,'' said new-found football convert, French actress Beatrice Dalle, after seeing a World Cup game.

But despite the undoubted interest being generated by the French team's success, the passion has not yet reached the fever pitch seen in other countries.

The biggest television audience for France's firstround games was some 13 million, half that of the biggest audience in Britain for one of England's early matches.